A. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to articles useful in transporting sports equipment. More particularly, the invention relates to a hockey equipment carrying case for holding several hockey sticks and related accessory items such as pucks, the case including a handle which enables the case and contents to be conveniently carried by hand.
B. Description of Background Art
There are a variety of existing carrying devices for holding and transporting items of sporting equipment which have elongated shafts, such as hockey sticks. For example, Lamadelein, U.S. Pat. No. 5,249,723, discloses a carrier for shafted equipment such as a pair of hockey sticks, which includes a body having two elongated side-by-side arranged U-shaped channels formed of a resilient plastic material, each of the channels being so dimensioned as to be springingly biased against the shaft of a hockey stick inserted into the channel, thus gripping and retaining the shaft in the channel. A strap attached to opposite ends of the body serves as a shoulder sling for supporting the body and resiliently retained pair of hockey sticks.
Hincher, U.S. Pat. No. 5,758,767, discloses a soft-side hockey stick carrying bag shaped like a hockey stick, including an elongated section and angled shorter end section, the bag having a zipper closed opening for receiving a pair of hockey sticks, and a shoulder sling strap attached to opposite upper ends of the straight, elongated portion of the bag.
Pikel, U.S. Pat. No. 5,954,379, discloses a shafted sports equipment carrier for carrying sports equipment having a long shaft, such as a hockey stick. The carrier consists essentially of a unitary body which has a pair of side-by-side longitudinally disposed, downwardly facing channels which are each resiliently deformable to receive and hold the shaft of a hockey stick, and an upwardly protruding inverted C-shaped carrying handle.
The hockey equipment carrying case according to the present invention was conceived of to provide a carrier for holding and hand transporting various numbers of hockey sticks and associated accessories such as pucks.